Australian films related in some way to the "bush"
an inclusive but very incomplete list, and some notes
Back of Beyond (Michael Robertson, 1995) Paul Mercurio, Colin Friels, Dee Smart, John Polson, Rebekah Elmalogou; drama; released on VHS; 94 min.
Back of Beyond (John Heyer, 1954) documentary , 66 min.; cf. The Inlanders (1949); mailman Tom Kruse drives his truck through the sand from Maree to Birdsville
Backlash (Bill Bennett, 1986) wr. prod. Bill Bennett, Eastman colour, 35 mm, 89 min., prod. Bill Bennett for Mermaid Beach Productions, wr. Bill Bennett, with dialogue by the cast, dp Tony Wilson, music Michael Atkinson, Michael Spicer, ed. Denise Hunter; David Argue, Gia Carides, Lydia Miller, Brian Syron; drama, thriller
Backroads (Phillip Noyce, 1977) Sydney, Colour, 16 mm, 57 or 61 min., prod. Phillip Noyce, wr. John Emery, Phillip Noyce & cast, dp Russell Boyd; Terry Camilleri, Gary Foley, Bill Hunter, Zac Martin, Julie McGregor, Essie Coffey; white drifter (Bill Hunter) and young Aborigine (Gary Foley) careen around outback NSW, with others in the cast; brief review of DVD release: Edwin Peters, Empire, 45, December 2004: 112
Bondage Of The Bush, The (Charles Woods, 1913) bush melodrama; 44 min.
Breaking of the Drought, The (Franklyn Barrett, 1920)
Bush Christmas (Ralph Smart, 1947) Children's Entertainment Films ([British] Children's Film Foundation); Chips Rafferty
Bush Christmas (Henri Safran, 1983) aka Prince and the Great Race, prod. Paul D. Barron; remake of 1947 film; John Ewart, John Howard, Nicole Kidman; 91 min.; Kidman's film debut
Bush Cinderella, The (Rudall Hayward, 1928) NZ
Bushfire Moon (George Miller, 1987) aka The Christmas Visitor; children's; Dee Wallace-Stone, John Waters, Bill Kerr, Charles Tingwell, Nadine Garner, Andrew Ferguson, Grant Piro, Kim Gyngell
Bushman's Bride (Spencer's Pictures, 1912)
Bushranger's Ransom, A, Or A Ride For Life (E. J. Cole, 1911) Ben Hall story
Bushwhackers, The (Raymond Longford, 1925)
Call Of The Bush (Charles Wood, 1912) sundowner story
Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986) Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Meillon, David Gulpilil (Neville Bell); 96 min.
Crocodile Dundee II (John Cornell, 1988) dp Russell Boyd; Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, Ernie Dingo (Charlie)
Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (Simon Wincer, 2001) Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, David Ngoombujarra (Arthur)
Dad and Dave Come To Town (Ken G. Hall, 1938) aka The Rudd Family Goes to Town; Peter Finch
Dad Rudd, M.P. (Ken G. Hall, 1940)
Girl of the Bush, A (Franklyn Barrett, 1921)
Grandad Rudd (Ken G. Hall, 1935) aka Ruling the Roost
Hayseeds Come to Sydney, The (Beaumont Smith, 1917) aka The Hayseeds Come To Town
Hayseeds' Back-Blocks Show, The (Beaumont Smith, 1917)
Hayseeds' Melbourne Cup, The (Beaumont Smith, 1918)
Hayseeds, The (Beaumont Smith, 1933) aka Our Friends, The Hayseeds; Cecil Kellaway; characters from Smith's (six - or seven?) silent films with the Hayseed family (1917, 1917, 1917, 1918, 1923, 1923); see also Splendid Fellows, aka The Hayseeds at the Melbourne Centenary and Prehistoric Hayseeds and Townies and Hayseeds
Lost In The Bush (Peter Dodds, 1973) Production Company: Audio-Visual Education Centre, Education Department of Victoria, wr. ed. Peter Dodds, story Les Blake, dp Lee Wright; 64 min., colour, 16 mm.; Gabrielle Bulle (Jane Duff), Colin Freckleton (Isaac Duff), Richard McClelland (Frank Duff), Adrian Crick, Barbara Maroske, Don Mitchell, Bill Tregonning; in 1864, Jane Duff, aged seven, and her two younger brothers spent nine days lost in the Victorian bush before being found in an advanced state of exhaustion by a search-party led by Aboriginal trackers
Lure Of The Bush, The (Claude Flemming, 1918)
Man From Snowy River, The (Beaumont Smith, 1920) Cyril Mackay, Stella Southern, Tal Ordell; 61 min.
Man from Snowy River, The (George Miller, 1982) Kirk Douglas, Tom Burlinson, Sigrid Thornton
Man from Snowy River II, The (Geoff Burrowes, 1988) aka Return to Snowy River, The Untamed; Brian Dennehy, Tom Burlinson, Sigrid Thornton
Moira (Alfred Rolfe, 1912) aka The Mystery Of The Bush
No Worries (David Elfick, 1993) Amy Terelinck, Geoff Morell, Susan Lyons, John Hargreaves, Steven Vidler, Ray Barrett, Harold Hopkins, Ngoc Hanh Nguyen (Binh); family has to leave the farm in hard times and come to the city, where the daughter makes a new, Vietnamese friend
On Our Selection (Raymond Longford, 1920)
On Our Selection (Ken G. Hall, 1932) aka Down on the Farm
On Our Selection (George Whaley, 1995)
Our Friends, The Hayseeds (Beaumont Smith, 1917) aka The Hayseeds
Overlanders, The (Harry Watt, 1946) Ealing Studios; Chips Rafferty, Daphne Campbell, Clyde Combo (Jacky); has an Aboriginal person as a major character; not Australian; 91 min.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) prod. Jim & Hal McElroy, prod. Patricia Lovell, wr. Cliff Green from novel by Joan Lindsay, dp Russell Boyd; Kirsty Child, John Fegan, Vivean Gray, Dominic Guard, John Jarratt, Anne Lambert, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Ingrid Mason, Garry McDonald, Helen Morse, Rachel Roberts, Martin Vaughan, Jacki Weaver; thriller
Prehistoric Hayseeds (Beaumont Smith, 1923)
Rudd's New Selection (Raymond Longford, 1921)
Shiralee, The (Leslie Norman, 1957) Ealing Films; from the novel by D'Arcy Niland, 103 min.; Peter Finch (Macauley), Dana Wilson (Buster)
Shiralee, The (George Ogilvie, 1988) Bryan Brown, Noni Hazlehurst, Rebecca Smart; made for TV as 2 x 100 min.
Splendid Fellows (Beaumont Smith, 1934) Frank Leighton (as Hon. Hubert Montmorency Ralston); also promoted in NZ with the subtitle The Hayseeds at the Melbourne Centenary; Beaumont Smith's last film; buddy movie; cameo by Charles Kingsford Smith
Sundowner, The (E. J. Cole, 1911)
Sundowners, The (Fred Zinnemann, 1960) wr. Isobel Lennart, novel Jon Cleary, dp Jack Hildyard, 133 min., Warner Bros; Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov, Glynis Johns, Dina Merrill, Chips Rafferty, Michael Anderson, Lola Brooks, Wylie Watson, John Meillon, Ronald Fraser, Mervyn Johns, Molly Urquhart, Ewen Solon, Ray Barrett (two-up player), Leonard Teale (shearer), John Fegan; Pike & Cooper: 230-231
Sons of Matthew (Charles Chauvel, 1949) Greater Union Theatres/Universal Pictures; shot in Qld; Michael Pate, Ken Wayne, Tommy Burns, John Unicomb, John Ewart, Wendy Gibb; 107 min.; aka The Rugged O'Riordans (overseas version); family melodrama
Squatter And The Clown, The (1911)
Squatter's Daughter, The (Bert Bailey, 1910) aka The Land of the Wattle
Squatter's Daughter, The (Ken G. Hall, 1933) prod. Ken G. Hall, Cinesound Productions, wrs Gayne Dexter, E. V. Timms, play by 'Albert Edmunds' (Bert Bailey & Edmund Duggan), photography: Frank Hurley, George Malcolm; Owen Ainley, W. Lane Bayliff, Dorothy Dunkley, Jocelyn Howarth, George Lloyd, Grant Lyndsay, Fred Macdonald, Claude Turton, Katie Towers, Les Warton, John Warwick; 35 mm, 104 min. Romeo and Juliet story
Squatter's Son, The (E. J. Cole, 1911) "In a climactic horseback escape, the hero is helped by an obedient 'Black Boy' who destroys a bridge to delay the pursuers" Pike & Cooper 1998: 23; quotations in Malone 1987: 2
Squeaker's Mate (David Baker, before 1975?) short; story by Barbara Baynton; David Mitchell, Myra Skipper; on the DVD with The Great Macarthy; 41 min.
Town Like Alice, A (Jack Lee, 1956) Peter Finch; only final sequences shot in Australia; 112 min.
Townies and Hayseeds (Beaumont Smith, 1923)
Tracker, The (Rolf de Heer, 2002) wr. Rolf de Heer, dp Ian Jones; David Gulpilil, Gary Sweet, Damon Gameau, Grant Page; 98 min., national release 8 August. David Gulpilil won Best Actor AFI Awards 7 November 2002. His whole speech: "Yep, I deserved it; thank you Australia to recognise me"; songs performed by Archie Roach
Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971) aka Outback (US); wr. Evan Jones, novel Kenneth Cook, dp Brian West, ed. Anthony Buckley; Gary Bond (John Grant), Donald Pleasance (Doc Tydon), Chips Rafferty (Jock Crawford), Sylvia Kay, Jack Thompson, John Meillon, Peter Whittle, Al Thomas, John Armstrong, Slim de Grey, Maggie Dence, Norman Erskine, Buster Fiddess, Tex Foote, Owen Moase, John Dalleen, Colin Hughes, Mark Jackson, Nancy Knudsen, Dawn Lake, Harry Lawrence, Robert McDarra, Carlo Manchini, Liam Reynolds; suspenser; last film of Chips Rafferty and Buster Fiddess; Kotcheff went on to direct the first Rambo film First Blood; filmed Broken Hill
Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg, 1971) prod. Si Litvinoff, Max L. Raab & Si Litvinoff Films, wr. Edward Bond, novel James Vance Marshall, dp Nicolas Roeg, music John Barry, design Terry Gough, ed. Anthony Gibbs, Alan Patillo; Jenny Agutter (Girl), Lucien John [Roeg] (Brother), David Gulpilil (Aboriginal boy), John Meillon, Noelene Brown, Peter Carver, Barry Donnelly; influential UK production about two white Australian children stranded in desert and helped to safety by young Aborigine, played by David Gulpilil; 100 min.
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Songs of the Land - section of White Fella Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema (1996) - presented by (Dr) George Miller (a videotape published by ABC Video)
5. Sons of Matthew, dir. Charles Chauvel 1949 (with Michael Pate)
6. No Worries, dir. David Elfick 1993
7. The Squatter's Daughter, dir. Ken G. Hall 1933
Sons of Matthew
8. Newsfront, dir. Phillip Noyce 1979
9. Back of Beyond, documentary dir. John Heyer 1954
10. Picnic at Hanging Rock, dir. Peter Weir 1975
The Bushmen - section of White Fella Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema (1996) - presented by (Dr) George Miller
11. On our Selection, dir. Ken G. Hall 1932
12. On our Selection, dir. Raymond Longford 1920
13. The Breaking of the Drought, dir. Franklyn Barrett 1920
14. The Man from Snowy River, dir. George Miller 1982
15. The Shiralee (1957) (with Peter Finch)
16. Dad and Dave Come to Town, dir. Ken G. Hall 1938
17. Hayseeds (1933)
18. Dad Rudd, M.P., dir. Ken G. Hall 1940
19. Crocodile Dundee, dir. Peter Faiman 1986
Convicts - section of White Fella Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema (1996) - presented by (Dr) George Miller
(various short clips, not noted)
20. For the Term of his Natural Life, dir. Norman Dawn 1927
Bushrangers - section of White Fella Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema (1996) - presented by (Dr) George Miller
21. The Story of the Kelly Gang, dir. Charles Tait 1906
22. Ned Kelly, dir. Tony Richardson 1970 (with Mick Jagger)
23. Malcolm, dir. Nadia Tass 1986
Black Fellas - section of White Fella Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema (1996) - presented by (Dr) George Miller
57. Bitter Springs, dir. Ralph Smart 1950
58. Jedda, dir. Charles Chauvel 1955
59. Wrong Side of the Road, dir. Ned Lander 1981
60. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, dir. Fred Schepisi 1978
61. Blackfellas, dir. James Ricketson 1993 (Archie Weller, Day of the Dog)
62. Walkabout, dir. Nicolas Roeg 1971
63. Return Home, dir. Ray Argall 1990
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Inclusive Bibliography
Berryman, Ken 1990, 'A Girl of the Bush', in K. Berryman ed., Focus on Reel Australia, Australian Council of Government Film Libraries in association with the National Film and Sound Archive, Hendon SA.
Carroll, John 1982, 'National identity', in J. Carroll ed. Intruders in the Bush, Oxford University Press, Melbourne: 209-25.
Gibson, Ross 1988, 'Formative landscapes', in Scott Murray ed., Back of Beyond, 20-32.
Gibson, Ross 1992, South of the West, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis.
O'Regan Tom 1996, Australian National Cinema, Routledge, London.
Simpson, Catherine 2000, Imagined Geographies: Women's Negotiation of Space in Contemporary Australian Cinema, PhD dissertation, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.
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